The Argument Against Mifepristone Is Built on Lies About What the Drug Actually Does

The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments today in a case aimed at restricting access to the FDA-approved abortion medication mifepristone. The plaintiffs’ attorneys showed up armed with their favorite weapons: heaps of misinformation and fear-mongering lies.

Anti-abortion advocates have employed a wide range of tactics in arguing that mifepristone should be restricted, from invoking a 19th-century law regarding mailing “lewd” goods to claiming concern for endangered animals. (Seriously.) They are also desperate to convince us (and the nine Justices of the Supreme Court) that mifepristone is dangerous. It’s not.

What is mifepristone and how does it work?

Mifepristone is one-half of the medication used in a medication abortion. It blocks the body’s production of the hormone progesterone, causing the lining of the uterus—which is necessary to host a viable pregnancy—to break down. Mifepristone is then followed by a dose of misoprostol, which causes the uterus to empty.

If you hear people talk about the “abortion pill,” it’s usually actually a reference to both these pills taken together, although misoprostol can be taken alone in some circumstances.

Mifepristone is safe!

The case being heard by the Supreme Court is brought by a group of anti-abortion organizations and medical professionals who, among other things, want us to believe that mifepristone is harmful to patients. It is not! This drug was approved by the FDA in the year 2000 and has been shown to be safe and effective for more than two decades.

Erin Hawley—wife of the Senate’s #1 insurrection fan Josh Hawley—was in front of the court today representing the anti-abortion group The Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine and it seemed her mission was to spout as much misinformation as possible.

Hawley claimed that mifepristone is sending countless pregnant people to the emergency room, causing them harm and then “outsourcing” that harm to doctors who themselves might have anti-abortion beliefs. She claimed those doctors are having to “scrape out” women’s uteruses, which is simply not anywhere close to medically accurate when discussing modern abortions.

Hawley got so caught up in her own exaggerations that she tripped over herself at one point, saying, “According to Guttmacher, nearly 650,000 women take mifepristone every single year. It’s no surprise that Respondents have experienced an increase in emergency room visits and, indeed, treated women suffering from abortion drug harms tens of thousands of times—Excuse me, dozens of times. Women have suffered tens of thousands of times.”

Doctors have treated women experiencing extreme health issues after taking mifepristone dozens of times. Dozens out of 650,000. She claims women have “suffered” tens of thousands of times, presumably referencing documented emergency room visits.

But that figure was called out numerous times during today’s arguments. Hawley and others point to these ER visits and say it is evidence that mifepristone is a dangerous drug. But they never say what these visits are actually for.

Here’s what the FDA’s attorney Elizabeth Preloger told the court:

What FDA was observing … is that although it acknowledged the fact that some of the studies reported additional emergency room visits, that didn’t equate to additional serious adverse events. And, in fact, one of the studies, half of the women who went to the emergency room didn’t get any treatment at all.

Many women might go because they’re experiencing heavy bleeding, which mimics a miscarriage, and they might just need to know whether or not they’re having a complication. But, in that kind of circumstance, the woman is not having a serious adverse event from mifepristone, and so it doesn’t call into question the safety determinations regarding the drug.

The possible good news here is that most of the Justices did not seem to be buying into Hawley’s lies. Even some of the extremely conservative Justices seemed skeptical at best. There are a lot of other terrible arguments against mifepristone access that they might get onboard with but hopefully, the outright lie that this is an untested, dangerous drug isn’t one of them.

(featured image: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)